"That's no argument," George Winsor said excitedly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and gesticulating with it. "Just because a lumberjack is a beast is no reason that a college man is all right because he's less of a beast. I tell you I get sick of my own thoughts, and I get sick of the college when I hear about some things that are done. I keep straight, and I don't know why I do, I despise about half the fellows that chase around with rats, and sometimes I envy them like hell. Well, what's the sense in me keeping straight? What's the sense in anybody keeping straight? Fellows that don't seem to get along just as well as those that do. What do you think, Mel? You've been reading Havelock Ellis and a lot of ducks like that."

Burbank tossed a cigarette butt into the fire and gazed into the flames for a minute before speaking, his homely face serious and troubled. "I don't know what to think," he replied slowly. "Ellis tells about some things that make you fairly sick. So does Forel. The human race can be awfully rotten. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I'm all mixed up. Sometimes life just doesn't seem worth living to me, what with the filth and the slums and the greed and everything. I've been taking a course in sociology, and some of the things that Prof Davis has been telling us make you wonder why the world goes on at all. Some poet has a line somewhere about man's inhumanity to man, and I find myself thinking about that all the time. The world's rotten as hell, and I don't see how anything can be done about it. I don't think sometimes that it's worth living in. I can understand why people commit suicide." He spoke softly, gazing into the fire.

Hugh had given him rapt attention. Suddenly he spoke up, forgetting his resolve not to say anything more after Ferguson had called him "innocent." "I think you're wrong, Mel," he said positively. "I was reading a book the other day called 'Lavengro.' It's all about Gipsies. Well, this fellow Lavengro was all busted up and depressed; he's just about made up his mind to commit suicide when he meets a friend of his, a Gipsy. He tells the Gipsy that he's going to bump himself off, that he doesn't see anything in life to live for. Then the Gipsy answers him. Gee, it hit me square in the eye, and I memorized it on the spot. I think I can say it. He says: 'There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?' I think that's beautiful," he added simply, "and I think it's true, too."

"Good for you, Hugh," Ross said quietly.

Hugh blushed with pleasure, but he was taken back by Nutter's vigorous rejoinder. "Bunk!" he exclaimed. "Hooey! The sun, moon, and stars, and all that stuff sounds pretty, but it isn't life. Life's earning a living, and working like hell, and women, and pleasure. The 'Rubaiyat' 's the only poem—if you're going to quote poetry. That's the only poem I ever saw that had any sense to it.

"Come, Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past Regrets and future Fears. To-morrow? Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's seven thousand Years.

You bet. You never can tell when you're going to be bumped off, and so you might just as well have a good time while you can. You damn well don't know what's coming after you kick the bucket."

"Good stuff, the 'Rubaiyat,'" said Ferguson lazily. He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling. "I bet I've read it a hundred times. When they turn down an empty glass for me, it's going to be empty. I don't know what I'm here for or where I'm going or why. 'Into this world and why not knowing,' and so on. My folks sent me to Sunday-school and brought me up to be a good little boy. I believed just about everything they told me until I came to college. Now I know they told me a lot of damned lies. And I've talked with a lot of fellows who've had the same experience.... Anybody got a butt?"

Burbank, who was nearest to him, passed him a package of cigarettes. Ferguson extracted one, lighted it, blew smoke at the ceiling, and then quietly continued, drawling lazily: "Most fellows don't tell their folks anything, and there's no reason why they should, either. Our folks lie to us from the time we are babies. They lie to us about birth and God and life. My folks never told me the truth about anything. When I came to college I wasn't very innocent about women, but I was about everything else. I believed that God made the world in six days the way the Bible says, and that some day the world was coming to an end and that we'd all be pulled up to heaven where Christ would give us the once-over. Then he'd ship some of us to hell and give the good ones harps. Well, since I've found out that all that's hooey I don't believe in much of anything."

"I suppose you are talking about evolution," said Ross. "Well, Prof Humbert says that evolutions hasn't anything to do with the Bible—He says that science is science and that religion is religion and that the two don't mix. He says that he holds by evolution but that that doesn't make Christ's philosophy bad."

"No," Burbank agreed, "it doesn't make it bad; but that isn't the point. I've read the Bible, which I bet is more than the rest of you can say, and I've read the Sermon on the Mount a dozen times. It's darn good sense, but what good does it do? The world will never practice Christ's philosophy. The Bible says, 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,' and, believe me, that's damn true. If people would be pure and good, then Christ's philosophy would work, but they aren't pure and good; they aren't made pure and good, they're made selfish, and bad: they're made, mind you, made full of evil and lust. I tell you it's all wrong. I've been reading and reading, and the more I read the more I'm convinced that we're all rotten—and that if there is a god he made us rotten."

"You're wrong!" They all turned toward Winsor, who was still standing by the fireplace; even Ferguson rolled over and looked at the excited boy. "You're wrong," he repeated, "all wrong. I admit all that's been said about parents. They do cheat us just as Don said. I never tell my folks anything that really matters, and I don't know any other fellows that do, either. I suppose there are some, but I don't know them. And I admit that there is sin and vice, but I don't admit that Christ's philosophy is useless. I've read the Sermon on the Mount, too. That's about all of the Bible that I have read, but I've read that; and I tell you you're all wrong. There is enough good in man to make that philosophy practical. Why, there is more kindness and goodness around than we know about. We see the evil, and we know we have lusts and—and things, but we do good, too. And Hugh was right when he talked a while ago about the beauty in the world. There's lots of it, lots and lots of it. There's beautiful poetry and beautiful music and beautiful scenery; and there are people who appreciate all of it. I tell you that in spite of everything life is worth living. And I believe in Christ's philosophy, too. I don't know whether He is the son of God or not—I think that He must be—but that doesn't make any difference. Look at the wonderful influence He has had."

"Rot," said Burbank calmly, "absolute rot. There has never been a good deed done in His name; just the Inquisition and the what-do-you-call-'ems in Russia. Oh, yes, pogroms—and wars and robbing people. Christianity is just a name; there isn't any such thing. And most of the professional Christians that I've seen are damn fools. I tell you, George, it's all wrong. We're all in the dark, and I don't believe the profs know any more about it than we do."

"Oh, yes, they do," Hugh exclaimed; "they must. Think of all the studying they've done."

"Bah." Burbank was contemptuous. "They've read a lot of books, that's all. Most of them never had an idea in their lives. Oh, I know that some of them think; if they didn't, I'd leave college to-morrow. It's men like Davis and Maxwell and Henley and Jimpson who keep me here. But most of the profs can't do anything more than spout a few facts that they've got out of books. No, they don't know any more about it than we do. We don't know why we're here or where we're going or what we ought to do while we are here. And we get into groups and tell smutty stories and talk about women and religion, and we don't know any more than when we started. Think of all the talk that goes on around this college about sex. There's no end to it. Some of the fellows say positively there's no sense in staying straight; and a few, damn few, admit that they think a fellow ought to leave women alone, but most of them are in a muddle."

He rose and stretched. "I've got to be going—philosophy quiz to-morrow." He smiled. "I don't agree with Nutter, and I don't agree with George, and I don't agree with you, Don; and the worst of it is that I don't agree with myself. You fellows can bull about this some more if you want to; I've got to study."

"No, they can't," said Ross. "Not here, anyway. I've got to study, too. The whole of you'll have to get out."

The boys rose and stretched. Ferguson rolled lazily off the couch. "Well," he said with a yawn, "this has been very edifying. I've heard it all before in a hundred bull sessions, and I suppose I'll hear it all again. I don't know why I've hung around. There's a little dame that I've got to write a letter to, and, believe me, she's a damn sight more interesting than all your bull." He strolled out of the door, drawling a slow "good night" over his shoulder.

Hugh went to his room and thought over the talk. He was miserably confused. Like Ferguson he had believed everything that his father and mother—and the minister—had told him, and he found himself beginning to discard their ideas. There didn't seem to be any ideas to put in the place of those he discarded. Until Carl's recent confidence he had believed firmly in chastity, but he discovered, once the first shock had worn off, that he liked Carl the unchaste just as much as he had Carl the chaste. Carl seemed neither better nor worse for his experience.

He was lashed by desire; he was burning with curiosity—and yet, and yet something held him back. Something—he hardly knew what it was—made him avoid any woman who had a reputation for moral laxity. He shrank from such a woman—and desired her so intensely that he was ashamed.

Life was suddenly becoming very complicated, more complicated, it seemed, every day. With other undergraduates he discussed women and religion endlessly, but he never reached any satisfactory conclusions. He wished that he knew some professor that he could talk to. Surely some of them must know the answers to his riddles....



CHAPTER XVI

Hugh wasn't troubled only by religion and sex; the whole college was disturbing his peace of mind: all of his illusions were being ruthlessly shattered. He had supposed that all professors were wise men, that their knowledge was almost limitless, and he was finding that many of the undergraduates were frankly contemptuous of the majority of their teachers and that he himself was finding inspiration from only a few of them. He went to his classes because he felt that he had to, but in most of them he was confused or bored. He learned more in the bull sessions than he did in the class-room, and men like Ross and Burbank were teaching him more than his instructors.

Further, Nu Delta was proving a keen disappointment. More and more he found himself thinking of Malcolm Graham's talk to him during the rushing season of his freshman year. He often wished that Graham were still in college so that he could go to him for advice. The fraternity was not the brotherhood that he had dreamed about; it was composed of several cliques warring with each other, never coalescing into a single group except to contest the control of a student activity with some other fraternity. There were a few "brothers" that Hugh liked, but most of them were not his kind at all. Many of them were athletes taken into the fraternity because they were athletes and for no other reason, and although Hugh liked two of the athletes—they were really splendid fellows—he was forced to admit that three of them were hardly better than thugs, cheap muckers with fine bodies. Then there were the snobs, usually prep school men with more money than they could handle wisely, utterly contemptuous of any man not belonging to a fraternity or of one belonging to any of the lesser fraternities. These were the "smooth boys," interested primarily in clothes and "parties," passing their courses by the aid of tutors or fraternity brothers who happened to study.

Hugh felt that he ought to like all of his fraternity brothers, but, try as he would, he disliked the majority of them. Early in his sophomore year he knew that he ought to have "gone" Delta Sigma Delta, that that fraternity contained a group of men whom he liked and respected, most of them, at least. They weren't prominent in student activities, but they were earnest lads as a whole, trying hard to get something out of college.

The Nu Delta meetings every Monday night were a revelation to him. The brothers were openly bored; they paid little or no attention to the business before them. The president was constantly calling for order and not getting it. During the rushing season in the second term, interest picked up. Freshmen were being discussed. Four questions were inevitably asked. Did the freshman have money? Was he an athlete? Had he gone to a prep school? What was his family like?

Hugh had been very much attracted by a lad named Parker. He was a charming youngster with a good mind and beautiful manners. In general, only bad manners were au fait at Sanford; so Parker was naturally conspicuous. Hugh proposed his name for membership to Nu Delta.

"He's a harp," said a brother scornfully. "At any rate, he's a Catholic."

That settled that. Only Protestants were eligible to Nu Delta at Sanford, although the fraternity had no national rule prohibiting members of other religions.

The snobbery of the fraternity cut Hugh deeply. He was a friendly lad who had never been taught prejudice. He even made friends with a Jewish youth and was severely censured by three fraternity brothers for that friendship. He was especially taken to task by Bob Tucker, the president.

"Look here, Hugh," Tucker said sternly, "you've got to draw the line somewhere. I suppose Einstein is a good fellow and all that, but you've been running around with him a lot. You've even brought him here several times. Of course, you can have anybody in your room you want, but we don't want any Jews around the house. I don't see why you had to pick him up, anyway. There's plenty of Christians in college."

"He's a first-class fellow," Hugh replied stubbornly, "and I like him. I don't see why we have to be so high-hat about Jews and Catholics. Most of the fraternities take in Catholics, and the Phi Thetas take in Jews; at least, they've got two. They bid Einstein, but he turned them down; his folks don't want him to join a fraternity. And Chubby Elson told me that the Theta Kappas wanted him awfully, but they have a local rule against Jews."

"That doesn't make any difference," Tucker said sharply. "We don't want him around here. Because some of the fraternities are so damn broad-minded isn't any reason that we ought to be. I don't see that their broad-mindedness is getting them anything. We rate about ten times as much as the Phi Thetas or the Theta Kappas, and the reason we do is that we are so much more exclusive."

Hugh wanted to mention the three Nu Delta thugs, but he wisely restrained himself. "All right," he said stubbornly, "I won't bring Einstein around here again, and I won't bring Parker either. But I'll see just as much of them as I want to. My friends are my friends, and if the fraternity doesn't like them, it can leave them alone. I pledged loyalty to the fraternity, but I'll be damned if I pledged my life to it." He got up and started for the door, his blue eyes dark with anger. "I hate snobs," he said viciously, and departed.

After rushing season was over, he rarely entered that fraternity house, chumming mostly with Carl, but finding friends in other fraternities or among non-fraternity men. He was depressed and gloomy, although his grades for the first term had been respectable. Nothing seemed very much worth while, not even making his letter on the track. He was gradually taking to cigarettes, and he had even had a nip or two out of a flask that Carl had brought to the room. He had read the "Rubaiyat," and it made a great impression on him. He and Carl often discussed the poem, and more and more Hugh was beginning to believe in Omar's philosophy. At least, he couldn't answer the arguments presented in Fitzgerald's beautiful quatrains. The poem both depressed and thrilled him. After reading it, he felt desperate—and ready for anything, convinced that the only wise course was to take the cash and let the credit go. He was much too young to hear the rumble of the distant drum. Sometimes he was sure that there wasn't a drum, anyway.

He was particularly blue one afternoon when Carl rushed into the room and urged him to go to Hastings, a town five miles from Haydensville.

"Jim Pearson's outside with his car," Carl said excitedly, "and he'll take us down. He's got to come right back—he's only going for some booze—but we needn't come back if we don't want to. We'll have a drink and give Hastings the once-over. How's to come along?"

"All right," Hugh agreed indifferently and began to pull on his baa-baa coat. "I'm with you. A shot of gin might jazz me up a little."

Once in Hastings, Pearson drove to a private residence at the edge of the town. The boys got out of the car and filed around to the back door, which was opened to their knock by a young man with a hatchet face and hard blue eyes.

"Hello, Mr. Pearson," he said with an effort to be pleasant. "Want some gin?"

"Yes, and some Scotch, too, Pete—if you have it. I'll take two quarts of Scotch and one of gin."

"All right." Pete led the way down into the cellar, switching on an electric light when he reached the foot of the stairs. There was a small bar in the rear of the dingy, underground room, a table or two, and dozens of small boxes stacked against the wall.

It was Hugh's first visit to a bootlegger's den, and he was keenly interested. He had a high-ball along with Carl and Pearson; then took another when Carl offered to stand treat. Pearson bought his three quarts of liquor, paid Pete, and departed alone, Carl and Hugh having decided to have another drink or two before they returned to Haydensville. After a second high-ball Hugh did not care how many he drank and was rather peevish when Carl insisted that he stop with a third. Pete charged them eight dollars for their drinks, which they cheerfully paid, and then warily climbed the stairs and stumbled out into the cold winter air.

"Brr," said Carl, buttoning his coat up to his chin; "it's cold as hell."

"So 'tis," Hugh agreed; "so 'tis. So 'tis. That's pretty. So 'tis, so 'tis, so 'tis. Isn't that pretty, Carl?"

"Awful pretty. Say it again."

"So 'tis. So 'tish. So—so—so. What wush it, Carl?"

"So 'tis."

"Oh, yes. So 'tish."

They walked slowly, arm in arm, toward the business section of Hastings, pausing now and then to laugh joyously over something that appealed to them as inordinately funny. Once it was a tree, another time a farmer in a sleigh, and a third time a Ford. Hugh insisted, after laughing until he wept, that the Ford was the "funniest goddamned thing" he'd ever seen. Carl agreed with him.

They were both pretty thoroughly drunk by the time they reached the center of the town, where they intended getting the bus back to Haydensville. Two girls passed them and smiled invitingly.

"Oh, what peaches," Carl exclaimed.

"Jush—jush—Jush swell," Hugh said with great positiveness, hanging on to Carl's arm. "They're the shwellest Janes I've ever sheen."

The girls, who were a few feet ahead, turned and smiled again.

"Let's pick them up," Carl whispered loudly.

"Shure," and Hugh started unsteadily to increase his pace.

The girls were professional prostitutes who visited Hastings twice a year "to get the Sanford trade." They were crude specimens, revealing their profession to the most casual observer. If Hugh had been sober they would have sickened him, but he wasn't sober; he was joyously drunk and the girls looked very desirable.

"Hello, girls," Carl said expansively, taking hold of one girl's arm. "Busy?"

"Bish-bishy?" Hugh repeated valiantly.

The older "girl" smiled, revealing five gold teeth.

"Of course not," she replied in a hard, flat voice. "Not too busy for you boys, anyway. Come along with us and we'll make this a big afternoon."

"Sure," Carl agreed.

"Sh-shure," Hugh stuttered. He reached forward to take the arm of the girl who had spoken, but at the same instant some one caught him by the wrist and held him still.

Harry Slade, the star football player and this year's captain, happened to be in Hastings; he was, in fact, seeking these very girls. He had intended to pass on when he saw two men with them, but as soon as he recognized Hugh he paused and then impulsively strode forward.

"Here, Carver," he said sharply. "What are you doing?"

"None—none of you da-damn business," Hugh replied angrily, trying to shake his wrist free. "Leggo of me or—or I'll—I'll—"

"You won't do anything," 'Slade interrupted. "You're going home with me."

"Who in hell are you?" one of the girls asked viciously. "Mind your own damn business."

"You mind yours, sister, or you'll get into a peck of trouble. This kid's going with me—and don't forget that. Come on, Carver."

Hugh was still vainly trying to twist his wrist free and was muttering, "Leggo, leggo o' me."

Slade jerked him across the sidewalk. Carl followed expostulating. "Get the hell out of here, Peters," Slade said angrily, "or I'll knock your fool block off. You chase off with those rats if you want to, but you leave Carver with me if you know what's good for you." He shoved Carl away, and Carl was sober enough to know that Slade meant what he said. Each girl took him by an arm, and he walked off down the street between them, almost instantly forgetting Hugh.

Fortunately the street was nearly deserted, and no one had witnessed the little drama. Hugh began to sob drunkenly. Slade grasped his shoulders and shook him until his head waggled. "Now, shut up!" Slade commanded sharply. He took Hugh by the arm and started down the street with him, Hugh still muttering, "Leggo, leggo o' me."

Slade walked him the whole five miles back to Haydensville, and before they were half way home Hugh's head began to clear. For a time he felt a little sick, but the nausea passed, and when they reached the campus he was quite sober. Not a word was spoken until Hugh unlocked the door of Surrey 19. Then Slade said: "Go wash your face and head in cold water. Souse yourself good and then come back; I want to have a talk with you."

Hugh obeyed orders, but with poor grace. He was angry and confused, angry because his liberty had been interfered with, and confused because Slade had never paid more than passing attention to him—and for a year and a half Slade had been his god.

Slade was one of those superb natural athletes who make history for many colleges. He was big, powerfully built, and moved as easily as a dancer. His features were good enough, but his brown eyes were dull and his jaw heavy rather than strong. Hugh had often heard that Slade dissipated violently, but he did not believe the rumors; he was positive that Slade could not be the athlete he was if he dissipated. He had been thrilled every time Slade had spoken to him—the big man of the college, the one Sanford man who had ever made All American, as Slade had this year.

When he returned to his room from the bath-room, Slade was sitting in a big chair smoking a cigarette. Hugh walked into his bedroom, combed his dripping hair, and then came into the study, still angry but feeling a little sheepish and very curious.

"Well, what is it?" he demanded, sitting down.

"Do you know who those women were?"

"No. Who are they?"

"They're Bessie Haines and Emma Gleeson; at least, that's what they call themselves, and they're rotten bags."

Hugh had a little quiver of fright, but he felt that he ought to defend himself.

"Well, what of it?" he asked sullenly. "I don't see as you had any right to pull me away. You never paid any attention before to me. Why this sudden interest? How come you're so anxious to guard my purity?"

Slade was embarrassed. He threw his cigarette into the fireplace and immediately lighted another one. Then he looked at his shoes and muttered, "I'm a pretty bad egg myself."

"So I've heard." Hugh was frankly sarcastic.

"Well, I am." Slade looked up defiantly. "I guess it's up to me to explain—and I don't know how to do it. I'm a dumbbell. I can't talk decently. I flunked English One three times, you know." He hesitated a moment and then blurted out, "I was looking for those bags myself."

"What?" Hugh leaned forward and stared at him, bewildered and dumfounded. "You were looking for them?"

"Yeah... You see, I'm a bad egg—always been a bad one with women, ever since I was a kid. Gotta have one about every so often.... I—I'm not much."

"But what made you stop me?" Hugh pressed his hand to his temple. His head was aching, and he could make nothing out of Slade's talk.

"Because—because.... Oh, hell, Carver, I don't know how to explain it. I'm twenty-four and you're about nineteen and I know a lot that you don't. I was brought up in South Boston and I ran with a gang. There wasn't anything rotten that we didn't do.... I've been watching you. You're different."

"How different?" Hugh demanded. "I want women just as much as you do."

"That isn't it." Slade ran his fingers through his thick black hair and scowled fiercely at the fireplace. "That isn't it at all. You're—you're awfully clean and decent. I've been watching you lots—oh, for a year. You're—you're different," he finished lamely.

Hugh was beginning to understand. "Do you mean," he asked slowly, "that you want me to keep straight—that—that, well—that you like me that way better?" He was really asking Slade if he admired him, and Slade got his meaning perfectly. To Hugh the idea was preposterous. Why, Slade had made every society on the campus; he had been given every honor that the students could heap on him—and he envied Hugh, an almost unknown sophomore. Why, it was ridiculous.

"Yes, that's what I mean; that's what I was trying to get at." For a minute Slade hesitated; he wasn't used to giving expression to his confused emotions, and he didn't know how to go about it. "I'd—I'd like to be like you; that's it. I—I didn't want you to be like me.... Those women are awful bags. Anything might happen."

"Why didn't you stop Carl Peters, too, then?"

"Peters knows his way about. He can take care of himself. You're different, though.... You've never been drunk before, have you?"

"No. No, I never have." Hugh's irritation was all gone. He was touched, deeply touched, by Slade's clumsy admiration, and he felt weak, emotionally exhausted after his little spree. "It's awfully good of you to—to think of me that way. I'm—I'm glad you stopped me."

Slade stood up. He felt that he had better be going. He couldn't tell Hugh how much he liked and admired him, how much he envied him. He was altogether sentimental about the boy, entirely devoted to him. He had wanted to talk to Hugh more than Hugh had wanted to talk to him, but he had never felt that he had anything to offer that could possibly interest Hugh. It was a strange situation; the hero had put the hero worshiper on a high, white marble pedestal.

He moved toward the door. "So long," he said as casually as he could.

Hugh jumped up and rushed to him. "I'm awfully grateful to you, Harry," he said impulsively. "It was damn white of you. I—I don't know how to thank you." He held out his hand.

Slade gripped it for a moment, and then, muttering another "So long," passed out of the door.

Hugh was more confused than ever and grew steadily more confused as the days passed. He couldn't understand why Slade, frankly unchaste himself, should consider his chastity so important. He was genuinely glad that Slade had rescued him, genuinely grateful, but his confusion about all things sexual was more confounded. The strangest thing was that when he told Carl about Slade's talk, Carl seemed to understand perfectly, though he never offered a satisfactory explanation.

"I know how he feels," Carl said, "and I'm awfully glad he butted in and pulled you away. I'd hate to see you messing around with bags like that myself, and if I hadn't been drunk I wouldn't have let you. I'm more grateful to him than you are. Gee! I'd never have forgiven myself," he concluded fervently.

* * * * *

Just when the Incident was beginning to occupy less of Hugh's thoughts, it was suddenly brought back with a crash. He came home from the gymnasium one afternoon to find Carl seated at his desk writing. He looked up when Hugh came in, tore the paper into fragments, and tossed them info the waste-basket.

"Guess I'd better tell you," he said briefly. "I was just writing a note to you."

"To me? Why?"

Carl pointed to his suit-case standing by the center-table.

"That's why."

"Going away on a party?"

"My trunk left an hour ago. I'm going away for good." Carl's voice was husky, and he spoke with an obvious effort.

Hugh walked quickly to the desk. "Why, old man, what's the matter? Anything wrong with your mother? You're not sick, are you?"

Carl laughed, briefly, bitterly. "Yes, I'm sick all right. I'm sick."

Hugh, worried, looked at him seriously. "Why, what's the matter? I didn't know that you weren't feeling well."

Carl looked at the rug and muttered, "You remember those rats we picked up in Hastings?"

"Yes?"

"Well, I know of seven fellows they've sent home."

"What!" Hugh cried, his eyes wide with horror. "You don't mean that you—that you—"

"I mean exactly that," Carl replied in a low, flat voice. He rose and moved to the other side of the room. "I mean exactly that; and Doc Conners agrees with me," he added sarcastically. Then more softly, "He's got to tell the dean. That's why I'm going home."

Hugh was swept simultaneously by revulsion and sympathy. "God, I'm sorry," he exclaimed. "Oh, Carl, I'm so damn sorry."

Carl was standing by Hugh's desk, his hands clenched, his lips compressed. "Keep my junk," he said unevenly, "and sell anything you want to if you live in the house next year."

"But you'll be back?"

"No, I won't come back—I won't come back." He was having a hard time to keep back the tears and bit his trembling lip mercilessly. "Oh, Hugh," he suddenly cried, "what will my mother say?"

Hugh was deeply distressed, but he was startled by that "my mother." It was the first time he had ever heard Carl speak of his mother except as the "old lady."

"She will understand," he said soothingly.

"How can she? How can she? God, Hugh, God!" He buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly. Hugh put his arm around his shoulder and tried to comfort him, and in a few minutes Carl was in control of himself again. He dried his eyes with his handkerchief.

"What a fish I am!" he said, trying to grin. "A goddamn fish." He looked at his watch. "Hell, I've got to be going if I'm going to make the five fifteen," He picked up his suit-case and held out his free hand. "There's something I want to say to you, Hugh, but I guess I'll write it. Please don't come to the train with me." He gripped Hugh's hand hard for an instant and then was out of the door and down the hall before Hugh had time to say anything.

Two days afterward the letter came. The customary "Dear brother" and "Fraternally yours" were omitted.

Dear Hugh:

I've thought of letters yards long but I'm not going to write them. I just want to say that you are the finest thing that ever happened to me outside of my mother, and I respect you more than any fellow I've ever known. I'm ashamed because I started you drinking and I hope you'll stop it. I feel toward you the way Harry Slade does, only more I guess. You've done an awful lot for me.

I want to ask a favor of you. Please leave women alone. Keep straight, please. You don't know how much I want you to do that.

Thanks for all you've done for me.

CARL.

Hugh's eyes filled with tears when he read that letter. Carl seemed a tragic figure to him, and he missed him dreadfully. Poor old Carl! What hell it must have been to tell his mother! "And he wants me to keep straight. By God, I will.... I'll try to, anyhow."



CHAPTER XVII

Hugh's depression was not continuous by any means. He was much too young and too healthy not to find life an enjoyable experience most of the time. Disillusionment followed disillusionment, each one painful and dispiriting in itself, but they came at long enough intervals for him to find a great deal of pleasure in between.

Also, for the first time since he had been transferred from Alling's section in Latin, he was taking genuine interest in a course. Having decided to major in English, he found that he was required to take a composition course the second half of his sophomore year. His instructor was Professor Henley, known as Jimmie Henley among the students, a man in his middle thirties, spare, neat in his dress, sharp with his tongue, apt to say what he thought in terms so plain that not even the stupidest undergraduate could fail to understand him. His hazel-brown eyes were capable of a friendly twinkle, but they had a way of darkening suddenly and snapping that kept his students constantly on the alert. There was little of the professor about him but a great deal of the teacher.

Hugh went to his first conference with him not entirely easy in his mind. Henley had a reputation for "tearing themes to pieces and making a fellow feel like a poor fish." Hugh had written his themes hastily, as he had during his freshman year, and he was afraid that Henley might discover evidences of that haste.

Henley was leaning back in his swivel chair, his feet on the desk, a brier pipe in his mouth, as Hugh entered the cubbyhole of an office. Down came the feet with a bang.

"Hello, Carver," Henley said cheerfully. "Come in and sit down while I go through your themes." He motioned to a chair by the desk. Hugh muttered a shy "hello" and sat down, watching Henley expectantly and rather uncomfortably.

Henley picked up three themes. Then he turned his keen eyes on Hugh. "I've already read these. Lazy cuss, aren't you?" he asked amiably.

Hugh flushed. "I—I suppose so."

"You know that you are; no supposing to it." He slapped the desk lightly with the themes. "First drafts, aren't they?"

"Yes, sir." Hugh felt his cheeks getting warmer.

Henley smiled. "Thanks for not lying. If you had lied, this conference would have ended right now. Oh, I wouldn't have told you that I thought you were lying; I would simply have made a few polite but entirely insincere comments about your work and let you go. Now I am going to talk to you frankly and honestly."

"I wish you would," Hugh murmured, but he wasn't at all sure that he wished anything of the sort.

Henley knocked the ashes out of his pipe into a metal tray, refilled it, lighted it, and then puffed meditatively, gazing at Hugh with kind but speculative eyes.

"I think you have ability," he began slowly. "You evidently write with great fluency and considerable accuracy, and I can find poetic touches here and there that please me. But you are careless, abominably careless, lazy. Whatever virtues there are in your themes come from a natural gift, not from any effort you made to say the thing in the best way. Now, I'm not going to spend anytime discussing these themes in detail; they aren't worth it."

He pointed his pipe at Hugh. "The point is exactly this," he said sternly. "I'll never spend any time discussing your themes so long as you turn in hasty, shoddy work. I can see right now that you can get a C in this course without trying. If that's all you want, all right, I'll give it to you—and let it go at that. The Lord knows that I have enough to do without wasting time on lazy youngsters who haven't sense enough to develop their gifts. If you continue to turn in themes like these, I'll give you C's or D's on them and let you dig your own shallow grave by yourself. But If you want to try to write as well as you can, I'll give you all the help in my power. Not one minute can you have so long as you don't try, but you can have hours if you do try. Furthermore, you will find writing a pleasure if you write as well as you can, but you won't get any sport just scribbling off themes because you have to."

He paused to toss the three themes across the desk to Hugh, who was watching him with astonishment. No instructor had ever talked to him that way before.

"You can rewrite these themes if you want to," Henley went on. "I haven't graded them, and I'll reserve the grades for the rewritten themes; and if I find that you have made a real effort, I'll discuss them in detail with you. What do you say?"

"I'd like to rewrite them," Hugh said softly. "I know they are rotten."

"No, they aren't rotten. I've got dozens that are worse. That isn't the point. They aren't nearly so good as you can make them, and only your best work is acceptable to me. Now show me what you can do with them, and then we'll tear them to shreds in regular fashion." He turned to his desk and smiled at Hugh, who, understanding that the conference was over, stood up and reached for the themes. "I'll be interested in seeing what you can do with those," Henley concluded. "Every one of them has a good idea. Go to it—and get them back in a week."

"Yes, sir. Thanks very much."

"Right-o. Good-by."

"Good-by, sir," and Hugh left the office determined to rewrite those themes so that "they'd knock Jimmie Henley's eye out." They didn't do exactly that, but they did interest him, and he spent an hour and a half discussing them with Hugh.

That was merely the first of a series of long conferences. Sometimes Henley and Hugh discussed writing, but often they talked about other subjects, not as instructor and student but as two men who respected each other's mind. Before the term was out Henley had invited Hugh to his home for dinner and to meet Mrs. Henley. Hugh was enormously flattered and, for some reason, stimulated to do better work. He found his talks with Henley really exciting, and he expressed his opinions to him as freely and almost as positively as he did to his classmates. He told his friends that Jimmie Henley was human, not like most profs. And he worked at his writing as he had never worked at anything, running excepted, since he had been in college.

The students never knew what to expect from Henley in the class-room. Sometimes he read themes and criticized them; sometimes he discussed books that he had been reading; sometimes he read poetry, not because contemporary poetry was part of the course but because he happened to feel like reading it that morning; sometimes he discoursed on the art of writing; and sometimes he talked about anything that happened to be occupying his mind. He made his class-room an open forum, and the students felt free to interrupt him at any time and to disagree with him. Usually they did disagree with him and afterward wrote violent themes to prove that he was wrong. That was exactly what Henley wanted them to do, and the more he could stir them up the better satisfied he was.

One morning, however, he talked without interruption. He didn't want to be interrupted, and the boys were so taken back by his statements that they could find no words to say anything.

The bell rang. Henley called the roll, stuck his class-book into his coat pocket, placed his watch on the desk; then leaned back and looked the class over.

"Your themes are making me sick," he began, "nauseated. I have a fairly strong stomach, but there is just so much that I can stand—and you have passed the limit. There is hardly a man in this class who hasn't written at least one theme on the glory that is Sanford. As you know, I am a Sanford man myself, and I have my share of affection for the college, but you have reached an ecstasy of chauvinism that makes Chauvin's affection for Napoleon seem almost like contempt.

"In the last batch of themes I got five telling me of the perfection of Sanford: Sanford is the greatest college in the country; Sanford has the best athletes, the finest equipment, the most erudite faculty, the most perfect location, the most loyal alumni, the strongest spirit—the most superlative everything. Nonsense! Rot! Bunk! Sanford hasn't anything of the sort, and I who love it say so. Sanford is a good little college, but it isn't a Harvard, a Yale, or a Princeton, or, for that matter, a Dartmouth or Brown; and those colleges still have perfection ahead of them. Sanford has made a place for itself in the sun, but it will never find a bigger place so long as its sons do nothing but chant its praises and condemn any one as disloyal who happens to mention its very numerous faults.

"Well, I'm going to mention some of those faults, not all of them by any means, just those that any intelligent undergraduate ought to be able to see for himself.

"In the first place, this is supposed to be an educational institution; it is endowed for that purpose and it advertises itself as such. And you men say that you come here to get an education. But what do you really do? You resist education with all your might and main, digging your heels into the gravel of your own ignorance and fighting any attempt to teach you anything every inch of the way. What's worse, you aren't content with your own ignorance; you insist that every one else be ignorant, too. Suppose a man attempts to acquire culture, as some of them do. What happens? He is branded as wet. He is a social leper.

"Wet! What currency that bit of slang has—and what awful power. It took me a long time to find out what the word meant, but after long research I think that I know. A man is wet if he isn't a 'regular guy'; he is wet if he isn't 'smooth'; he is wet if he has intellectual interests and lets the mob discover them; and, strangely enough, he is wet by the same token if he is utterly stupid. He is wet if he doesn't show at least a tendency to dissipate, but he isn't wet if he dissipates to excess. A man will be branded as wet for any of these reasons, and once he is so branded, he might as well leave college; if he doesn't, he will have a lonely and hard row to hoe. It is a rare undergraduate who can stand the open contempt of his fellows."

He paused, obviously ordering his thoughts before continuing. The boys waited expectantly. Some of them were angry, some amused, a few in agreement, and all of them intensely interested.

Henley leaned back in his chair. "What horrible little conformers you are," he began sarcastically, "and how you loathe any one who doesn't conform! You dress both your bodies and your minds to some set model. Just at present you are making your hair foul with some sort of perfumed axle-grease; nine tenths of you part it in the middle. It makes no difference whether the style is becoming to you or not; you slick it down and part it in the middle. Last year nobody did it; the chances are that next year nobody will do it, but anybody who doesn't do it right now is in danger of being called wet."

Hugh had a moment of satisfaction. He did not pomade his hair, and he parted it on the side as he had when he came to college. True, he had tried the new fashion, but after scanning himself carefully in the mirror, he decided that he looked like a "blond wop"—and washed his hair. He was guilty, however, of the next crime mentioned.

"The same thing is true of clothes," Henley was saying. "Last year every one wore four-button suits and very severe trousers. This year every one is wearing Norfolk jackets and bell-bottomed trousers, absurd things that flop around the shoes, and some of them all but trail on the ground. Now, any one who can't afford the latest creation or who declines to wear it is promptly called wet.

"And, as I said before, you insist on the same standardization of your minds. Just now it is not au fait to like poetry; a man who does is exceedingly wet, indeed; he is effeminate, a sissy. As a matter of fact, most of you like poetry very much. You never give me such good attention as when I read poetry. What's more, some of you are writing the disgraceful stuff. But what happens when a man does submit a poem as a theme? He writes at the bottom of the page, 'Please do not read this in class.' Some of you write that because you don't think that the poem is very good, but most of you are afraid of the contempt of your classmates. I know of any number of men in this college who read vast quantities of poetry, but always on the sly. Just think of that! Men pay thousands of dollars and give four years of their lives supposedly to acquire culture and then have to sneak off into a corner to read poetry.

"Who are your college gods? The brilliant men who are thinking and learning, the men with ideals and aspirations? Not by a long shot. They are the athletes. Some of the athletes happen to be as intelligent and as eager to learn as anybody else, but a fair number are here simply because they are paid to come to play football or baseball or what not. And they are worshiped, bowed down to, cheered, and adored. The brilliant men, unless they happen to be very 'smooth' in the bargain, are considered wet and are ostracized.

"Such is the college that you write themes about to tell me that it is perfect. The college is made up of men who worship mediocrity; that is their ideal except in athletics. The condition of the football field is a thousand times more important to the undergraduates and the alumni than the number of books in the library or the quality of the faculty. The fraternities will fight each other to pledge an athlete, but I have yet to see them raise any dust over a man who was merely intelligent.

"I tell you that you have false standards, false ideals, and that you have a false loyalty to the college. The college can stand criticism; it will thrive and grow on it—but it won't grow on blind adoration. I tell you further that you are as standardized as Fords and about as ornamental. Fords are useful for ordinary work; so are you—and unless some of you wake up and, as you would say, 'get hep to yourselves,' you are never going to be anything more than human Fords.

"You pride yourselves on being the cream of the earth, the noblest work of God. You are told so constantly. You are the intellectual aristocracy of America, the men who are going to lead the masses to a brighter and broader vision of life. Merciful heavens preserve us! You swagger around utterly contemptuous of the man who hasn't gone to college. You talk magnificently about democracy, but you scorn the non-college man—and you try pathetically to imitate Yale and Princeton. And I suppose Yale and Princeton are trying to imitate Fifth Avenue and Newport. Democracy! Rot! This college isn't democratic. Certain fraternities condescend to other fraternities, and those fraternities barely deign even to condescend to the non-fraternity men. You say hello to everybody on the campus and think that you are democratic. Don't fool yourselves, and don't try to fool me. If you want to write some themes about Sanford that have some sense and truth in them, some honest observation, go ahead; but don't pass in any more chauvinistic bunk. I'm sick of it."

He put his watch in his pocket and stood up. "You may belong to the intellectual aristocracy of the country, but I doubt it; you may lead the masses to a 'bigger and better' life, but I doubt it; you may be the cream of the earth, but I doubt it. All I've got to say is this: if you're the cream of the earth, God help the skimmed milk." He stepped down from the rostrum and briskly left the room.

For an instant the boys sat silent, and then suddenly there was a rustle of excitement. Some of them laughed, some of them swore softly, and most of them began to talk. They pulled on their baa-baa coats and left the room chattering.

"He certainly has the dope," said Pudge Jamieson. "We're a lot of low-brows pretending to be intellectual high-hats. We're intellectual hypocrites; that's what we are."

"How do you get that way?" Ferdy Hillman, who was walking with Hugh and Pudge, demanded angrily. "We may not be so hot, but we're a damn sight better than these guys that work in offices and mills. Jimmie Henley gives me a pain. He shoots off his gab as if he knew everything. He's got to show me where other colleges have anything on Sanford. He's a hell of a Sanford man, he is."

They were walking slowly down the stairs. George Winsor caught up with them.

"What did you think of it, George?" Hugh asked.

Winsor grinned. "He gave me some awful body blows," he said, chuckling. "Cripes, I felt most of the time that he was talking only to me. I'm sore all over. What did you think of it? Jimmie's a live wire, all right."

"I don't know what to think," Hugh replied soberly. "He's knocked all the props from under me. I've got to think it over."

He did think it over, and the more he thought the more he was inclined to believe that Henley was right. Boy-like, he carried Henley's statements to their final conclusion and decided that the college was a colossal failure. He wrote a theme and said so.

"You're wrong, Hugh," Henley said when he read the theme. "Sanford has real virtues, a bushel of them. You'll discover them all right before you graduate."



CHAPTER XVIII

Sanford's virtues were hard for Hugh to find, and they grew more inconspicuous as the term advanced. For the time being nothing seemed worth while: he was disgusted with himself, the undergraduates, and the fraternity; he felt that the college had bilked him. Often he thought of the talk he had had with his father before he left for college. Sometimes that talk seemed funny, entirely idiotic, but sometimes it infuriated him. What right had his father to send him off to college with such fool ideas in his head? Nu Delta, the perfect brotherhood! Bull! How did his father get that way, anyhow? Hugh had yet to learn that nearly every chapter changes character at least once a decade and that Nu Delta thirty years earlier had been an entirely different organization from what it was at present. At times he felt that his father had deliberately deceived him, but in quieter moments he knew better; then he realized that his father was a dreamer and an innocent, a delicately minded man who had never really known anything about Sanford College or the world either. Hugh often felt older and wiser than his father; and in many ways he was.

In March he angered his fraternity brothers again by refusing a part in the annual musical comedy, which was staged by the Dramatic Society during Prom week. Hugh's tenor singing voice and rather small features made him an excellent possibility for a woman's part. But he was not a good actor, and he knew it. His attempts at acting in a high-school play had resulted in a flat failure, and he had no intention of publicly making a fool of himself again. Besides, he did not like the idea of appearing on the stage as a girl; the mere idea was offensive to him. Therefore, when the Society offered him a part he declined it.

Bob Tucker took him severely to task. "What do you mean, Hugh," he demanded, "by turning down the Dramat? Here you've got a chance for a lead, and you turn up your nose at it as if you were God Almighty. It seems to me that you are getting gosh-awful high-hat lately. You run around with a bunch of thoroughly wet ones; you never come to fraternity meetings if you can help it; you aren't half training down at the track; and now you give the Dramat the air just as if an activity or two wasn't anything in your young life."

"The Dramat isn't anything to me," Hugh replied, trying to keep his temper. Tucker's arrogance always made him angry. "I can't act worth a damn. Never could. I tried once in a play at home and made a poor fish of myself, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm not going to again."

"Bunk!" Tucker ejaculated contemptuously. "Hooey! Anybody can act good enough for the Dramat. I tell you right now that you're turning the fraternity down; you're playing us dirt. What have you done in college? Not a goddamn thing except make the Glee Club. I don't care about track. I suppose you did your best last year, though I know damn well that you aren't doing it this year. What would become of the fraternity if all of us parked ourselves on our tails and gave the activities the air the way you do? You're throwing us down, and we don't like it."

"Well, I'm not going out for the Dramat," Hugh mumbled sullenly; "you can just bet on that. I'll admit that I haven't trained the way I ought to, but I have made the Glee Club, and I have promised to join the Banjo Club, and I am still on the track squad, and that's more than half the fellows in this fraternity can say. Most of 'em don't do anything but go on parties and raise hell generally. How come you're picking on me? Why don't you ride some of them for a while? I don't see where they're so hot."

"Never mind the other fellows." Tucker's black eyes flashed angrily. He was one of the "hell-raisers" himself, good looking; always beautifully dressed, and proud of the fact that he was "rated the smoothest man on the campus." His "smoothness" had made him prominent in activities—that and his estimate of himself. He took it for granted that he would be prominent, and the students accepted him at his own valuation; and powerful Nu Delta had been behind him, always able to swing Votes when votes were needed.

"Never mind the other fellows," he repeated. "They're none of your party. You've got talents, and you're not making use of them. You could be as popular as the devil if you wanted to, but you go chasing around with kikes and micks."

Hugh was very angry and a little absurd in his youthful pomposity. "I suppose you refer to Parker and Einstein—my one mick friend, although he isn't Irish, and my, one Jewish friend. Well, I shall stick to them and see just as much of them as I like. I've told you that before, and you might as well get me straight right now: I'm going to run with whoever I want. The fraternity cannot dictate to me about my friends. You told me you didn't want Parker and Einstein around the house. I don't bring them around. I don't see as how you've got a right to ask anything more."

"I don't suppose you realize that everything you do reflects on the fraternity," Tucker retorted, slightly pompous himself.

"I suppose it does, but I can't see that I have done anything that is going to ruin the name of Nu Delta. I don't get potted regularly or chase around with filthy bags or flunk my courses or crib my way through; and I could mention some men in this house who do all those things." Hugh was thoroughly angry and no longer in possession of his best judgment. "If you don't like the way I act, you can have my pin any time you say." He stood up, his blue eyes almost black with rage, his cheeks flushed, his mouth a thin white line.

Tucker realized that he had gone too far. "Oh, don't get sore, Hugh," he said soothingly. "I didn't mean it the way you are taking it. Of course, we don't want you to turn in your pin. We all like you. We just want you to come around more and be one of the fellows, more of a regular guy. We feel that you can bring a lot of honor to the fraternity if you want to, and we've been kinda sore because you've been giving activities the go-by."

"How about my studies?" Hugh retorted. "I suppose you want me to give them the air. Well, I did the first term, and I made a record that I was ashamed of. I promised my folks that I'd do better; and I'm going to. I give an hour or two a day to track and several hours a week to the Glee Club, and now I'm going to have to give several more to the Banjo Club. That's all I can give at present, and that's all I'm going to give. I know perfectly well that some fellows can go out for a bunch of activities and make Phi Bete, too; but they're sharks and I'm not. Don't worry, either; I won't disgrace the fraternity by making Phi Bete," he concluded sarcastically.

"Oh, calm down, Hugh, and forget what I said," Tucker pleaded, thoroughly sorry that he had started the argument. "You go ahead and do what you think right and we'll stand by you." He stood up and put his hand on Hugh's shoulder. "No hard feelings, are there, old man?"

Kindness always melted Hugh; no matter how angry he was, he could not resist it. "No," he said softly; "no hard feelings. I'm sorry I lost my temper."

Tucker patted his shoulder. "Oh, that's all right. I guess I kinda lost mine, too. You'll be around to the meeting to-morrow night, won't you? Better come. Paying fines don't get you anywhere."

"Sure, I'll come."

He went but took no part in the discussion, nor did he frequent the fraternity house any more than he had previously. More and more he realized that he had "gone with the wrong crowd," and more and more he thought of what Graham had said to him in his freshman year about how a man was in hell if he joined the wrong fraternity. "I was the wise bird," he told himself caustically; "I was the guy who knew all about it. Graham saw what would happen, and I didn't have sense enough to take his advice. Hell, I never even thought about what he told me. I knew that I would be in heaven if Nu Delta gave me a bid. Heaven! Well, I'm glad that they were too high-hat for Norry Parker and that he went with the right bunch."

Norville Parker was Hugh's Catholic friend, and the more he saw of the freshman the better he liked him. Parker had received several bids from fraternities, and he followed the advice Hugh had given him. "If Delta Sigma Delta bids you, go there," Hugh had said positively. "They're the bunch you belong with. Apparently the Kappa Zetes are going to bid you, too. You go Delta Sig if you get the chance." Hugh envied Parker the really beautiful fraternity life he was leading. "Why in God's name," he demanded of himself regularly, "didn't I have sense enough to take Graham's advice?"

When spring came, the two boys took long walks into the country, both of them loving the new beauty of the spring and happy in perfect companionship. Hugh missed Carl badly, and he wanted to ask Parker to room with him the remainder of the term. He felt, however, that the fraternity would object, and he wanted no further trouble with Nu Delta. As a matter of fact, the fraternity would have said nothing, but Hugh had become hypersensitive and expected his "brothers" to find fault with his every move. He had no intention of deserting Parker, but he could not help feeling that rooming with him would be a gratuitous insult to the fraternity.

Parker—every one called him Norry—was a slender, delicate lad with dreamy gray eyes and silky brown hair that, unless he brushed it back severely, fell in soft curls on his extraordinarily white forehead. Except for a slightly aquiline nose and a firm jaw, he was almost effeminate in appearance, his mouth was so sensitive, his hands so white and slender, his manner so gentle. He had a slow, winning smile, a quiet, low voice. He was a dreamer and a mystic, a youth who could see fairies dancing in the shadows; and he told Hugh what he saw.

"I see things," he said to Hugh one moonlight night as they strolled through the woods; "I see things, lovely little creatures flitting around among the trees: I mean I see them when I'm alone. I like to lie on my back in the meadows and look at the clouds and imagine myself sitting on a big fellow and sailing and sailing away to heaven. It's wonderful. I feel that way when I play my fiddle." He played the violin beautifully and had promptly been made soloist for the Musical Clubs. "I—I can't explain. Sometimes when I finish playing, I find my eyes full of tears. I feel as if I had been to some wonderful place, and I don't want to come back."

"I guess I'm not like other fellows. I cry over poetry, not because it makes me sad. It's not that. It's just so beautiful. Why, when I first read Shelley's 'Cloud' I was almost sick I was so happy. I could hardly stand it. And when I hear beautiful music I cry, too. Why, when I listen to Kreisler, I sometimes want to beg him to stop; it hurts and makes me so happy that—that I just can't stand it," he finished lamely.

"I know," Hugh said. "I know how it is. I feel that way sometimes, too, but not as much as you, I guess. I don't cry. I never really cry, but I want to once in a while. I—I write poetry sometimes," he confessed awkwardly, "but I guess it's not very good. Jimmie Henley says it isn't so bad for a sophomore, but I'm afraid that he's just stringing me along, trying to encourage me, you know. But there are times when I've said a little bit right, just a little bit, but I've known that it was right—and then I feel the way you do."

"I've written lots of poetry," Norry said simply, "but it's no good; it's never any good." He paused between two big trees and pointed upward. "Look, look up there. See those black branches and that patch of sky between them and those stars. I want to picture that—and I can't; and I want to picture the trees the way they look now so fluffy with tiny new leaves, but I miss it a million miles.... But I can get it in music," he added more brightly. "Grieg says it. Music is the most wonderful thing in the world. I wish I could be a great violinist. I can't, though. I'm not a genius, and I'm not strong enough. I can't practice very long."

They continued walking in silence for a few minutes, and then Norry said: "I'm awfully happy here at college, and I didn't expect to be, either. I knew that I was kinda different from other fellows, not so strong; and I don't like ugly things or smutty stories or anything like that. I think women are lovely, and I hate to hear fellows tell dirty stories about them. I'm no fool, Hugh; I know about the things that happen, but I don't want to hear about them. Things that are dirty and ugly make me feel sick."

"Well, I was afraid the fellows would razz me. But they don't. They don't at all. The fellows over at the Delta Sig house are wonderful to me. They don't think I'm wet. They don't razz me for not going on wild parties, though I know that some of the fellows are pretty gay themselves. They ask me to fiddle for them nearly every evening, and they sit and listen very, very quietly just as long as I'll play. I'm glad you told me to go Delta Sig."

Norry made Hugh feel very old and a little crude and hard. He realized that there was something rare, almost exquisite, about the boy, and that he lived largely in a beautiful world of his own imagination. It would have surprised Norry if any one had told him that his fraternity brothers stood in awe of him, that they thought he was a genius. Some of them were built out of pretty common clay, but they felt the almost unearthly purity of the boy they had made a brother; and the hardest of them, the crudest, silently elected himself the guardian of that purity.



CHAPTER XIX

Hugh found real happiness in Norry Parker's companionship, and such men as Burbank and Winsor were giving him a more robust but no less pleasant friendship. They were earnest youths, eager and alive, curious about the world, reading, discussing all sorts of topics vigorously, and yet far more of the earth earthy than Parker, who was so mystical and dreamy that constant association with him would have been something of a strain.

For a time life seemed to settle down into a pleasant groove of studies that took not too much time, movies, concerts, an occasional play by the Dramatic Society, perhaps a slumming party to a dance in Hastings Saturday nights, bull sessions, long talks with Henley in his office or at his home, running on the track, and some reading.

For a week or two life was lifted out of the groove by a professor's daughter. Burbank introduced Hugh to her, and at first he was attracted by her calm dignity. He called three times and then gave her up in despair. Her dignity hid an utterly blank mind. She was as uninteresting as her father, and he had the reputation, well deserved, of being the dullest lecturer on the campus.

Only one event disturbed the pleasant calm of Hugh's life after his argument with Tucker. He did not attend Prom because he knew no girl whom he cared to ask; he failed again to make his letter and took his failure philosophically; and he received a note from Janet Harton telling him that she was engaged to "the most wonderful man in the world"—and he didn't give a hoot if she was.

Just after Easter vacation the Nu Deltas gave their annual house dance. Hugh looked forward to it with considerable pleasure. True, he was not "dragging a woman," but several of the brothers were going "stag"; so he felt completely at ease.

The freshmen were put to work cleaning the house, the curtains were sent to the laundry, bedroom closets and dresser drawers were emptied of anything the girls might find too interesting, and an enormously expensive orchestra was imported from New York. Finally a number of young alumni, the four patronesses, and the girls appeared.

Getting dressed for the dance was a real event in Hugh's life. He had worn evening clothes only a few times before, but those occasions, fraternity banquets and glee club concerts, were, he felt, relatively unimportant. The dance, however, was different, and he felt that he must look his best, his very "smoothest." He was a rare undergraduate; he owned everything necessary to wear to an evening function—at least, everything an undergraduate considered necessary. He did not own a dress-suit, and he would have had no use for it if he had; only Tuxedos were worn.

He dressed with great care, tying and retying his tie until it was knotted perfectly. When at last he drew on his jacket, he looked himself over in the mirror with considerable satisfaction. He knew that he was dressed right.

It hardly entered his mind that he was an exceedingly good-looking young man. Vanity was not one of his faults. But he had good reason to be pleased with the image he was examining for any sartorial defects. He had brushed his sandy brown hair until it shone; his shave had left his slender cheeks almost as smooth as a girl's; his blue eyes were very bright and clear; and the black suit emphasized his blond cleanness: it was a wholesome-looking, attractive youth who finally pulled on his top-coat and started happily across the campus for the Nu Delta house.

The dance was just starting when he arrived. The patronesses were in the library, a small room off the living-room. Hugh learned later that six men had been delegated to keep the patronesses in the library and adequately entertained. The men worked in shifts, and although the dance lasted until three the next morning, not a patroness got a chance to wander unchaperoned around the house.

The living-room of the Nu Delta house was so large that it was unnecessary to use the dining-room for a dance. Therefore, most of the big chairs and divans had been moved into the dining-room—and the dining-room was dark.

Hugh permitted himself to be presented to the patronesses, mumbled a few polite words, and then joined the stag line, waiting for a chance to cut in. Presently a couple moved slowly by, so slowly that they did not seem to move at all. The girl was Hester Sheville, and Hugh had been introduced to her in the afternoon. Despite rather uneven features and red hair, she was almost pretty; and in her green evening gown, which was cut daringly low, she was flashing and attractive.

Hugh stepped forward and tapped her partner on the shoulder. The brother released her with a grimace at Hugh, and Hester, without a word, put her right hand in Hugh's left and slipped her left arm around his neck. They danced in silence for a time, bodies pressed close together, swaying in place, hardly advancing. Presently, however, Hester drew her head back and spoke.

"Hot stuff, isn't it?" she asked lazily.

Hugh was startled. Her breath was redolent of whisky.

"Sure is," he replied and executed a difficult step, the girl following him without the slightest difficulty. She danced remarkably, but he was glad when he was tapped on the shoulder and another brother claimed Hester. The whisky breath had repelled him.

As the evening wore on he danced with a good many girls who had whisky breaths. One girl clung to him as they danced and whispered, "Hold me up, kid; I'm ginned." He had to rush a third, a dainty blond child, to the porch railing. She wasn't a pretty sight as she vomited into the garden; nor did Hugh find her gasped comment, "The seas are rough to-night," amusing. Another girl went sound asleep in a chair and had to be carried up-stairs and put to bed.

A number of the brothers were hilarious; a few had drunk too much and were sick; one had a "crying jag." There were men there, however, who were not drinking at all, and they were making gallant efforts to keep the sober girls away from the less sober girls and the inebriated brothers.

Hugh was not drinking. The idea of drinking at a dance was offensive to him; he thought it insulting to the girls. The fact that some of the girls were drinking horrified him. He didn't mind their smoking—well, not very much; but drinking? That was going altogether too far.

About midnight he danced again with Hester Sheville, not because he wanted to but because she had insisted. He had been standing gloomily in the doorway watching the bacchanalian scene, listening to the tom-tom of the drums when she came up to him.

"I wanta dance," she said huskily. "I wanta dance with you—you—you blond beast." Seeing no way to decline to dance with the half-drunk girl, he put his arm around her and started off. Hester's tongue was no longer in control, but her feet followed his unerringly. When the music stopped, she whispered, "Take me—ta-take me to th' th' dining-room." Wonderingly, Hugh led her across the hall. He had not been in the dining-room since the dance started, and he was amazed and shocked to find half a dozen couples in the big chairs or on the divans in close embrace. He paused, but Hester led him to an empty chair, shoved him clumsily down into it, and then flopped down on his lap.

"Le's—le's pet," she whispered. "I wanna pet."

Again Hugh smelled the whisky fumes as she put her hot mouth to his and kissed him hungrily. He was angry, angry and humiliated. He tried to get up, to force the girl off of his lap, but she clung tenaciously to him, striving insistently to kiss him on the mouth. Finally Hugh's anger got the better of his manners; he stood up, the girl hanging to his neck, literally tore her arms off of him, took her by the waist and set her down firmly in the chair.

"Sit there," he said softly, viciously; "sit there."

She began to cry, and he walked rapidly out of the dining-room, his cheeks flaming and his eyes flashing; and the embracing couples paid no attention to him at all. He had to pass the door of the library to get his top-coat—he made up his mind to get out of the "goddamned house"—and was walking quickly by the door when one of the patronesses called to him.

"Oh, Mr. Carver. Will you come here a minute?"

"Surely, Mrs. Reynolds." He entered the library and waited before the dowager.

"I left my wrap up-stairs—in Mr. Merrill's room, I think it is. I am getting a little chilly. Won't you get it for me?"

"Of course. It's in Merrill's room?"

"I think it is. It's right at the head of the stairs. The wrap's blue with white fur."

Hugh ran up the stairs, opened Merrill's door, switched on the lights, and immediately spotted the wrap lying over the back of a chair. He picked it up and was about to leave the room when a noise behind him attracted his attention. He turned and saw a man and a girl lying on the bed watching him.

Hugh stared blankly at them, his mouth half open.

"Get th' hell out of here," the man said roughly.

For an instant Hugh continued to stare; then he whirled about, walked out of the room, slammed the door behind him, and hurried down the stairs. He delivered the wrap to Mrs. Reynolds, and two minutes later he was out of the house walking, almost running, across the campus to Surrey Hall. Once there, he tore off his top-coat, his jacket, his collar and tie, and threw himself down into a chair.

So this was college! This was the fraternity—that goddamned rat house! That was what he had pledged allegiance to, was it? Those were his brothers, were they? Brothers! Brothers!

He fairly leaped out of his chair and began to pace the floor. College! Gentlemen! A lot of muckers chasing around with a bunch of rats; that's what they were. Great thing—fraternities. No doubt about it, they were a great institution.

He paused in his mental tirade, suddenly conscious of the fact that he wasn't fair. Some of the fraternities, he knew, would never stand for any such performance as he had witnessed that evening; most of them, he was sure, wouldn't. It was just the Nu Deltas and one or two others; well, maybe three or four. So that's what he had joined, was it?

He thought of Hester Sheville, of her whisky breath, her lascivious pawing—and his hands clenched. "Filthy little rat," he said aloud, "the stinkin', rotten rat."

Then he remembered that there had been girls there who hadn't drunk anything, girls who somehow managed to move through the whole orgy calm and sweet. His anger mounted. It was a hell of a way to treat a decent girl, to ask her to a dance with a lot of drunkards and soused rats.

He was warm with anger. Reckless of the buttons, he tore off his waistcoat and threw it on a chair. The jeweled fraternity pin by the pocket caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment and then slowly unpinned it. He let it lie in his hand and addressed it aloud, hardly aware of the fact that he was speaking at all.

"So that's what you stand for, is it? For snobs and politicians and muckers. Well, I don't want any more of you—not—one—damn—bit— more—of—you."

He tossed the pin indifferently upon the center-table, making up his mind that he would resign from the fraternity the next day.

When the next day came he found, however, that his anger had somewhat abated. He was still indignant, but he didn't have the courage to go through with his resignation. Such an action, he knew, would mean a great deal of publicity, publicity impossible to avoid. The fraternity would announce its acceptance of his resignation in "The Sanford Daily News"; and then he would either have to lie or start a scandal.

As the days went by and he thought more and more about the dance, he began to doubt his indignation. Wasn't he after all a prude to get so hot? Wasn't he perhaps a prig, a sissy? At times he thought that he was; at other times he was sure that he wasn't. He could be permanently sure of only one thing, that he was a cynic.



CHAPTER XX

Hugh avoided the Nu Delta house for the remainder of the term and spent more time on his studies than he had since he had entered college. The result was, of course, that he made a good record, and the A that Henley gave him in English delighted him so much that he almost forgot his fraternity troubles. Not quite, however. During the first few weeks of the vacation he often thought of talking to his father about Nu Delta, but he could not find the courage to destroy his father's illusions. He found, too, that he couldn't talk to his mother about things that he had seen and learned at college. Like most of his friends, he felt that "the folks wouldn't understand."

He spent the first two months at home working on the farm, but when Norry Parker invited him to visit him for a month on Long Island Sound, Hugh accepted the invitation and departed for the Parker summer cottage in high feather. He was eager to see Norry again, but he was even more eager to see New York. He had just celebrated his twentieth birthday, and he considered it disgraceful that he had never visited the "Big City," as New York was always known at Sanford. Norry met him at Grand Central, a livelier and more robust Norry than Hugh had ever seen. The boy actually seemed like a boy and not a sprite; his cheeks were tanned almost brown, and his gray eyes danced with excitement when he spotted Hugh in the crowd.

"Gee, Hugh, I'm glad to see you," he exclaimed, shaking Hugh's hand joyously. "I'm tickled to death that you could come."

"So am I," said Hugh heartily, really happy to see Norry looking so well, and thrilled to be in New York. "Gosh, you look fine. I hardly know you. Where'd you get all the pep?"

"Swimming' and sailing. This is the first summer I've been well enough to swim all I want to. Oh, it's pretty down where we are. You'll love the nights, Hugh. The Sound is wonderful."

"I'll bet. Well, where do we go from here? Say, this is certainly a whale of a station, isn't it? It makes me feel like a hick."

"Oh, you'll get over that soon enough," Norry, the seasoned New Yorker, assured him easily. "We're going right out to the cottage. It's too hot to-day to run around the city, but we'll come in soon and you can give it the once-over." He took Hugh's arm and led him out of the station.

It had never entered Hugh's mind that Norry's father might be rich. He had noticed that Norry's clothes were very well tailored, and Norry had told him that his violin was a Cremona, but the boy was not lavish with money and never talked about it at all. Hugh was therefore surprised and a little startled to see Norry walk up to an expensive limousine with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. He wondered if the Parkers weren't too high-hat for him?

"We'll go right home, Martin," Norry said to the chauffeur. "Get in, Hugh."

The Parker cottage was a short distance from New Rochelle. It was a beautiful place, hardly in the style of a Newport "cottage" but roomy and very comfortable. It was not far from the water, and the Parkers owned their own boat-house.

Mrs. Parker was on the veranda when the car drew up at the steps.

"Hello, Mother," Norry called.

She got up and ran lightly down the steps, her hand held out in welcome to Hugh.

"I know that you are Hugh Carver," she said in a beautifully modulated voice, "and I am really delighted to meet you. Norry has talked so much about you that I should have felt cheated if you hadn't come."

Hugh's fears immediately departed. "I should have myself," he replied. "It was awfully good of you to invite me."

After meeting Norry's father and mother, Hugh understood the boy better. Mrs. Parker was both charming and pretty, a delightful woman who played the piano with professional skill. Mr. Parker was an artist, a portrait-painter, and he got prices for his pictures that staggered Hugh when Norry mentioned them casually. He was a quiet, grave man with gray eyes like his son's.

When he had a minute alone with Hugh, he said to him with simple sincerity: "You have been very kind to Norry, and we are grateful. He is a strange, poetic lad who needs the kind of understanding friendship you have given him. We should have been deeply disappointed if you hadn't been able to visit us."

The expressions of gratitude embarrassed Hugh, but they made him feel sure of his welcome; and once he was sure of that he began to enjoy himself as he never had before. Before the month was out, he had made many visits to New York and was able to talk about both the Ritz and Macdougal Alley with elaborate casualness when he returned to college. He and Norry went swimming nearly every day and spent hours sailing on the Sound.

Norry introduced him to the many girls who had summer homes near the Parker cottage. They were a new type to him, boarding-school products, sure of themselves, "finished" with a high polish that glittered effectively, daringly frank both in their speech and their actions, beautiful dancers, good swimmers, full of "dirt," as they called gossip, and as offhand with men as they were with each other. Within a week Hugh got over his prejudice against women's smoking. Nearly every woman he met, including Mrs. Parker, smoked, and every girl carried her cigarette-case.

Most of the girls treated Norry as if he were a very nice small boy, but they adopted a different attitude toward Hugh. They flirted with him, perfected his "petting" technique, occasionally treated him to a drink, and made no pretense of hiding his attraction for them.

At first Hugh was startled and a little repelled, but he soon grew to like the frankness, the petting, and the liquor; and he was having a much too exciting time to pause often for criticism of himself or anybody else. It was during the last week of his visit that he fell in love.

He and Norry were standing near the float watching a number of swimmers. Suddenly Hugh was attracted by a girl he had never seen before. She wore a red one-piece bathing-suit that revealed every curve of her slender, boyish figure. She noticed Norry and threw up her arm in greeting.

"Who is she?" Hugh demanded eagerly.

"Cynthia Day. She's just back from visiting friends in Maine. She's an awfully good swimmer. Watch her." The girl poised for an instant on the edge of the float and then dived gracefully into the water, striking out with a powerful overhand stroke for another float a quarter of a mile out in the Sound. The boys watched her red cap as she rounded the float and started back, swimming easily and expertly. When she reached the beach, she ran out of the water, rubbed her hands over her face, and then strolled over to Norry.

Her hair was concealed by a red bathing-cap, but Hugh guessed that it was brown; at any rate, her eyes were brown and very large. She had an impudent little nose and full red lips.

"'Lo, Norry," she said, holding out her hand. "How's the infant?"

"Oh, I'm fine. This is my friend Hugh Carver."

"I've heard about you," she said as they shook hands. "I only got back last night, but everybody seems to be digging dirt about Norry's friend. Three of my friends are enemies on account of you, and one of 'em says she's going in swimming some day and forget to come back if you don't give her a little more time."

Hugh blushed, but he had learned a few things in the past weeks.

"I wish they would tell me about it," he said with a fair assumption of ease. "Why didn't you come back sooner?" He was pleased with that speech. He wouldn't have dared it a month before.

The brown eyes smiled at him. "Because I didn't know you were here. You haven't got a cigarette about you, have you? Norry's useless when it comes to smokes."

Hugh did have a package of cigarettes. She took one, put it in her mouth, and waited for Hugh to light it for her. When he did, she gazed curiously over the flame at him. She puffed the cigarette for a moment and then said, "You look like a good egg. Let's talk." She threw herself down on the sand, and the boys sat down beside her.

From that moment Hugh was lost. For the remaining days of the visit he spent every possible moment with Cynthia, fascinated by her chatter, thrilled by the touch of her hand. She made no objection when he offered shyly to kiss her; she quietly put her arms around his neck and turned her face up to his—and her kisses set him aflame.

For once, he did not want to return to college, and when he arrived in Haydensville he felt none of his usual enthusiasm. The initiation of the freshmen amused him only slightly, and the football games did not seem so important as they had the two previous years. A letter from Cynthia was the most important thing in the world, and she wrote good letters, chatty, gay, and affectionate.

Custom made it necessary for him to room in the fraternity house. It was an unwritten law of Nu Delta that all members live in the house their last two years, and Hugh hardly dared to contest the law. There were four men in the chapter whom he thoroughly liked and with whom he would have been glad to room, but they all had made their arrangements by the time he spoke to them; so he was forced to accept Paul Vinton's invitation to room with him.

Vinton was a cheerful youth with too much money and not enough sense. He wanted desperately to be thought a good fellow, a "regular guy," and he was willing to buy popularity if necessary by standing treat to any one every chance he got. He was known all over the campus as a "prize sucker."

He bored Hugh excessively by his confidences and almost offensive generosity. He always had a supply of Scotch whisky on hand, and he offered it to him so constantly that Hugh drank too much because it was easier and pleasanter to drink than to refuse.

Tucker had graduated, and the new president, Leonard Gates, was an altogether different sort of man. There had been a fight in the fraternity over his election. The "regular guys" opposed him and offered one of their own number as a candidate. Gates, however, was prominent in campus activities and had his own following in the house; as a result, he was elected by a slight margin.

He won Hugh's loyalty at the first fraternity meeting after he took the chair. "Some things are going to be changed in this house," he said sternly, "or I will bring influence to bear that will change them." Every one knew that he referred to the national president of the fraternity. "There will be no more drunken brawls in this house such as we had at the last house dance. Any one who brings a cheap woman into this house at a dance will hear from it. Both my fiancee and my sister were at the last dance. I do not intend that they shall be insulted again. This is not a bawdy-house, and I want some of you to remember that."

He tried very hard to pass a rule, such as many of the fraternities had, that no one could bring liquor into the house and that there should be no gambling. He failed, however. The brothers took his scolding about the dance because most of them were heartily ashamed of that occasion; but they announced that they did not intend to have the chapter turned into the S.C.A., which was the Sanford Christian Association. It would have been well for Hugh if the law had been passed. Vinton's insistent generosity was rapidly turning him into a steady drinker. He did not get drunk, but he was taking down more high-balls than were good for him.

Outside of his drinking, however, he was leading a virtuous and, on the whole, an industrious life. He was too much in love with Cynthia Day to let his mind dwell on other women, and he had become sufficiently interested in his studies to like them for their own sake.

A change had come over the campus. It was inexplicable but highly significant. There had been evidences of it the year before, but now it became so evident that even some of the members of the faculty were aware of it. Intolerance seemed to be dying, and the word "wet" was heard less often. The undergraduates were forsaking their old gods. The wave of materialism was swept back by an in-rushing tide of idealism. Students suddenly ceased to concentrate in economics and filled the English and philosophy classes to overflowing.

No one was able really to explain the causes for the change, but it was there and welcome. The "Sanford Literary Magazine," which had been slowly perishing for several years, became almost as popular as the "Cap and Bells," the comic magazine, which coined money by publishing risque jokes and pictures of slightly dressed women. A poetry magazine daringly made its appearance on the campus and, to the surprise of its editors, was received so cordially that they were able to pay the printer's bill.

It became the fashion to read. Instructors in English were continually being asked what the best new books were or if such and such a book was all that it was "cracked up to be." If the instructor hadn't read the book, he was treated to a look of contempt that sent him hastening to the library.

Of course, not all of the undergraduates took to reading and thinking; the millennium had not arrived, but the intelligent majority began to read and discuss books openly, and the intelligent majority ruled the campus.

Hugh was one of the most enthusiastic of the readers. He was taking a course in nineteenth-century poetry with Blake, the head of the English department. His other instructors either bored him or left him cold, but Blake turned each class hour into a thrilling experience. He was a handsome man with gray hair, dark eyes, and a magnificent voice. He taught poetry almost entirely by reading it, only occasionally interpolating an explanatory remark, and he read beautifully. His reading was dramatic, almost tricky; but it made the poems live for his students, and they reveled in his classes.

Hugh's junior year was made almost beautiful by that poetry course and by his adoration for Cynthia. He was writing verses constantly—and he found "Cynthia" an exceedingly troublesome word; it seemed as if nothing would rime with it. At times he thought of taking to free verse, but the results of his efforts did not satisfy him. He always had the feeling that he had merely chopped up some rather bad prose; and he was invariably right. Cynthia wrote him that she loved the poems he sent her because they were so passionate. He blushed when he read her praise. It disturbed him. He wished that she had used a different word.



CHAPTER XXI

For the first term Hugh slid comfortably down a well oiled groove of routine. He went to the movies regularly, wrote as regularly to Cynthia and thought about her even more, read enormous quantities of poetry, "bulled" with his friends, attended all the athletic contests, played cards occasionally, and received his daily liquor from Vinton. He no longer protested when Vinton offered him a drink; he accepted it as a matter of course, and he had almost completely forgotten that "smoking wasn't good for a runner." He had just about decided that he wasn't a runner, anyway.

One evening in early spring he met George Winsor as he was crossing the campus.

"Hello, George. Where are you going?"

"Over to Ted Alien's room. Big poker party to-night. Don't you want to sit in?"

"You told me last week that you had sworn off poker. How come you're playing again so soon?" Hugh strolled lazily along with Winsor.

"Not poker, Hugh—craps. I've sworn off craps for good, and maybe I'll swear off poker after to-night. I'm nearly a hundred berries to the good right now, and I can afford to play if I want to."

"I'm a little ahead myself," said Hugh. "I don't play very often, though, except in the house when the fellows insist. I can't shoot craps at all, and I get tired of cards after a couple of hours."

"I'm a damn fool to play," Winsor asserted positively, "a plain damn fool, I oughtn't to waste my time at it, but I'm a regular fiend for the game. I get a great kick out of it. How's to sit in with us? There's only going to be half a dozen fellows. Two-bit limit."

"Yeah, it'll start with a two-bit limit, but after an hour deuces'll be wild all over the place and the sky will be the limit. I've sat in those games before."

Winsor laughed. "Guess you're right, but what's the odds? Better shoot a few hands."

"Well, all-right, but I can't stay later than eleven. I've got a quiz in eccy to-morrow, and I've got to bone up on it some time to-night."

"I've got that quiz, too. I'll leave with you at eleven."

Winsor and Hugh entered the dormitory and climbed the stairs. Allen's door was open, and several undergraduates were lolling around the room, smoking and chatting. They welcomed the new-comers with shouts of "Hi, Hugh," and "Hi, George."

Allen had a large round table in the center of his study, and the boys soon had it cleared for action. Allen tossed the cards upon the table, produced several ash-trays, and then carefully locked the door.

"Keep an ear open for Mac," he admonished his friends; "He's warned me twice now," "Mac" was the night-watchman, and he had a way of dropping in unexpectedly on gambling parties. "Here are the chips. You count 'em out, George. Two-bit limit."

The boys drew up chairs to the table, lighted cigarettes or pipes, and began the game. Hugh had been right; the "two-bit limit" was soon lifted, and Allen urged his guests to go as far as they liked.

There were ugly rumors about Allen around the campus. He was good looking, belonged to a fraternity in high standing, wore excellent clothes, and did fairly well in his studies; but the rumors persisted. There were students who insisted that he hadn't the conscience of a snake, and a good many of them hinted that no honest man ever had such consistently good luck at cards and dice.

The other boys soon got heated and talkative, but Allen said little besides announcing his bids. His blue eyes remained coldly expressionless whether he won or lost the hand; his crisp, curly brown hair remained neatly combed and untouched by a nervous hand; his lips parted occasionally in a quiet smile: he was the perfect gambler, never excited, always in absolute control of himself.

Hugh marveled at the control as the evening wore on. He was excited, and, try as he would, he could not keep his excitement from showing. Luck, however, was with him; by ten o'clock he was seventy-five dollars ahead, and most of it was Allen's money.

Hugh passed by three hands in succession, unwilling to take any chances. He had decided to "play close," never betting unless he held something worth putting his money on.

Allen dealt the fourth hand. "Ante up," he said quietly. The five other men followed his lead in tossing chips into the center of the table. He looked at his hand. "Two blue ones if you want to stay in." Winsor and two of the men threw down their cards, but Hugh and a lad named Mandel each shoved two blue chips into the pot.

Hugh had three queens and an ace. "One card," he said to Allen. Allen tossed him the card, and Hugh's heart leaped when he saw that it was an ace.

"Two cards, Ted," Mandel requested, nervously crushing his cigarette in an ash-tray. He picked up the cards one at a time, lifting each slowly by one corner, and peeking at it as if he were afraid that a sudden full view would blast him to eternity. His face did not change expression as he added the cards to the three that he held in his hand.